Do Catalans have ‘the right to decide’? Secession, legitimacy and democracy in twenty-first century Europe

ABSTRACT

Secession is normally viewed as legitimate only as a last resort for oppressed peoples, but contemporary independence movements in Europe are working hard to shift perceptions of the legitimacy of secession as a democratic phenomenon. In this context, the recent growth of the independence movement in Catalonia has given rise to a direct confrontation between two opposing conceptions of the legitimacy of secession in democratic nation-states. On one hand, pro-referendum Catalans claim that a vote on the matter would be entirely consistent with the basic principles of democracy. On the other, the Spanish government rests its denial of a referendum on the legal authority of the Spanish Constitution, which states that Spain must remain united. This article traces the two competing discourses of democratic and legal legitimacy (what we might call the ‘right to decide’ vs. the ‘duty to abide’) through an examination of the rhetoric of key political actors. It concludes that the Catalan government’s attempt to prove that Catalonia could constitute a politically legitimate independent state, and should therefore be allowed to ask its residents whether they wish it to do so, is particularly significant as a challenge to generally accepted ‘remedial right’ theories of secession.

KEYWORDS:

• Catalonia
• Spain
• Catalan independence movement
• secession
• political legitimacy

Notes

1. See, for example, the list of 14,513 international figures who in 2013 were sent a copy of the book Catalonia Calling: What the World Has to Know; http://www.sapiens.cat/ca/personatges.php.

2. Spanish Constitution of 1978, Section 149.1.32.

3. His deputy and education minister were also charged.

4. ‘Resolució 5/X del Parlament de Catalunya, per la qual s’aprova la Declaració de sobirania i el dret a decidir del poble de Catalunya’, 23 January 2013.

5. Sentence 42/2014 of 25 March 2014, published in Boletín Oficial del Estado number 87, 10 April 2014, 77–99.

6. See the Spanish Constitution of 1978: Articles 1(2) and 2.

7. All translations from Spanish and Catalan sources are my own.

8. Surveys consistently show that around 80% of Catalans back a binding referendum, which is much higher than the figures for those who support independence (which varies greatly depending on the exact parameters of the question) (RAC1 2012).

9. The question of what constitutes the Catalan nation is a complex one, since cultural and in some cases political identification with Catalonia extends outside the borders of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia as it is currently constituted. This is one of the factors that complicates the perceived legitimacy of the president of the Catalan Government to speak for all Catalans.

10. Spanish Constitution of 1978, Sections 1, 2 and 155.

11. See Part IX Section 161 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.